Print this article

Brown Int. V8 Heatsink


Date
: 10/29/01 – 03:28:02 PM

Author
:

Category
: Cooling

Page 1 : Introduction

Manufacturer: Brown International Corporation
Price: $20

Introduction

We’ve seen a lot of wacky heaksinks lately, but all that is nothing compared to the shape of the V8 heatsink we’re about to review today. This heatsink is manufactured by Brown International. I doubt you ever heard of this company before. When O was asked to review this V8 heatsink, I also had to read the name twice before I figured out what it really was. Well, nevermind the company ‘s name! I always say to myself… As long as they have sweet products at low prices, there’s nothing to worry about ;)

Do you care for some company information? OK, here we go … Brown International Corporation manufactures all kinds of hardware for military purposes. The company is located in Huntsville, Alabama (that’s in the US). Their facilities encompass over 60000 square feet of office, engineering, laboratory and manufacturing space. Their main objective is to produce high quality and technologically advanced defense systems. But it looks like they’ve also designed a new and unique heatsink for all of us. If anyone understands why a company that manufactures advanced defense systems also designs heatsinks, please don’t hesitate to drop me a mail.

Testing Method

Here’s how we test all heatsinks @ O … We tested each heatsink for about an hour with RC5 and Prime95 running together with other common used software like email, ICQ and stuff. RC5 and Prime95 is used to max out the CPU power and to let the CPU generate as much heat as possible. After an hour, we measured the temperature with that little program called Motherboard Monitor. (Check out our downloads page for links to these proggies) The next step is to turn off all the programs that were running during the stress test and see how the temperature evolves after about half an hour. That’s when we measure the idle temps. I’d like to note that the HQ45 case of our testbed was closed and no additional case cooling was turned on. By the way … this is how we always test the HSF’s around here so we can compare results from various heatsinks. Ambient temps were around 21C …

Now, let’s first have a look at the amazing design of this V8 heatsink. I just know you are curious to see more. After looking at the specs, we’re also going to show you how it stacks up against some well-known competitors on the cooler market.

Page 2 : Specifications

Specifications

Heatsink

- Alum. Alloy (6063T5) Heatsink
- Steel (SK7) Retaining Clip
- Fits socket 5/7/370/A Pentium or AMD Athlon Thunderbird / Duron from 500 MHz to 1.4 GHz
- Dimensions : 70mm x 50mm x 40mm

The Fans

- 12 VDC Operating Voltage
- Requires only 2.88 Watts
- Provides 34 CFM Air Flow
- Fan RPM Signal Out
- 3 and 4 Pin Molex Connector
- Quite 26 DBA Operation
- Ball and Sleeve Bearing System
- Dimensions : 50mm x 50mm x 20mm

Total Weight : 224 Grams
Total Dimensions : 100mm x 50mm x 60mm

The Specs Explained

Why is this heatsink called the ‘V8′ Heatsink? The answer to this question becomes very clear when you have a look at the shape of the sink. It’s V-shaped and it looks kinda like a V8 Chevy engine. I believe this is the first heatsink EVER with such an irregular shape. We will check out later in the review if this is a good thing or a bad thing.

The V8 cooler measures about 100mm x 50mm x 60mm in total. That’s when you leave the two fans on top of the heatsink. Oh yeah, that’s right, the V8 comes with two fans instead of just one like on many other coolers. The two fans measure 50mm x 50mm x 20mm each and also seem to be manufactured by Brown Int. But there are some things that bother me about the fans. First of all, neither one of them has a fan bracket to protect your poor fingers from getting sliced. And second, the side of the fan is open, so you also might cut your finger when to fan is running. There are certainly a couple of safety issues here peeps!

The bottom plate of the heatsink is about 4mm thick and is completely made out of aluminum, just like the entire heatsink by the way. The bottom of the heatsink seems to be handled with good care. It’s not polished like a mirror like on a Swiftech MCX370 for example, but I don’t see any major quality issues here. What’s the reason why Brown Int. didn’t use copper in this heatsink? Hell, I don’t know. How well, we’ve seen some great performance from all-aluminum heatsinks like the Swiftech MCX370, so I guess there’s no reason to panic!

On top of the very thin base plate, there are about 11 small fins. I’d like to note that Brown certainly did not choose to go with a thin fin design like we saw on the Vantec CCK heatsinks. In most cases a thin fin design results in more cooling power because every increase of the surface area improves heat dissipation. This will eventually result in lower CPU temperatures.

Let’s discuss the fan specs now. The 50mm x 50mm x 20mm fan is a little bit smaller than most other fans we see on popular cooler. Nevertheless, these fans are capable of delivering about 34CFM of airflow @ 5800RPM. That’s really not bad at all. with only 26 DBa, the noise of the fans should not exceed an acceptable level. Compared to a screaming 45 DBa Delta fan, these babies should be silent as hell! The fans can be powered by a molex 4-pin connector AND a small 3-pin connector. This is a very nice feature we don’t see often on other fans and coolers. If you use the 3-pin connector and plug it into your motherboard, you will also be able to enjoy RPM monitoring.

Is this unique heatsink easy to install and remove? We’re about to find out on the next page …

Page 3 : Installation & Removal

Installing & Removing

Installating a new heatsink is always an adventure on its own. A good or bad retention clip can make the difference between a crushed CPU core and a healthy one. No, serious guys, trust me on this one! And the good news is that the V8 has a very good clip which makes it easy to put it on the CPU and attach the clip to the CPU socket. You don’t even need any tools except for your thumb to put it in place. The installation process goes something like this : Put the heatsink on the core of the CPU very carefully, then slide the retention clip around the socket and push the clip down with your thumb. That’s all there is to it!

Removing the V8 from your CPU and motherboard is just as easy as installing it. Push the clip down again with your thumb untill it comes off. Then slowly remove the heatsink from the cPU and you’re all clear.

Brown Int. has also included a tiny paper with some guidelines …

And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for … the testresults!!

Page 4 : Testing

Testing

Test System :

- AOpen HQ45 case
-
AMD Athlon 1.3GHz @ 1.3GHz (1.75v) – 71W

- Brown Int. V8 Heatsink
- Abit KT7A-RAID Mainboard
- 256MB OCZ Performance Max SDRAM
- Hercules 3D Prophet 4500 Kyro II videocard
- IBM 20GB UDMA100 7200rpm hard drive
- Western Digital 45GB UDMA100 7200rpm hard drive
- Windows XP + VIA 4in1 4.35

Look at the comparison chart for a minut. What do you see? … I’ll tell you what you should see! The V8 Heatsink does a pretty good job at keeping our AMD Athlon 1.3GHz CPU cool. Now I know that 49C at full load isn’t all that cool for a 1.3GHz CPU … I mean there are heatsinks that might decrease temperatures by as much as 10C more than our V8, but for a $20 cooler this small, I guess we can’t complain. Don’t let these charts fool you when this heatsink gets beaten by every other cooler in the test. That’s only because the other coolers are $40 coolers and rated as high peformers. On the other hand, I believe there are also quite a lot of $20 heatsink who might just perform better than our V8 HSF! One last remark about the fans … according to the specs, these fans should have a noise level of 26DBa, right? Well, let me tell YOU that the noise these fans produce, has to be a lot more than 26DBa!

Page 5 : Conclusion

Summary & Conclusion

Good

- Pretty good cooling
- Up to 1.4GHz
- Quality
- Easy Retention clip
- Looks Sweet!
- Cheap

Bad

- No copper
- Fan noise
- Bigger heatsink would result in better cooling

Brown International Corporation is a very new kid on the cooler-block and I must say that they have impressed us all with such a unique V-shaped heatsink. Should you ever ask me if you should consider a V8 Heatsink, I would say … Sure, why not? But your decision has to depend on a lot of things. First of all, what CPU do you own? The specs say that the V8 should be good enough to cool down CPUs up to 1.4GHz, but that’s about it. It has an excellent retention clip which makes it extremely easy to mount the heatsink on your CPU. In case you don’t really know how to install the V8 properly, Brown Int. has included a small manual in the box. I wonder if anyone uses these manuals, but anyway, it’s there if you need it! What more can we say about this cooler? It’s a good start for Brown Int. on the coolermarket, but to beat the giants like Vantec, GlobalWin, Thermaltake, Swiftech, etc. , they’ll just have to do better than this. It’s not the looks of a heatsink that keeps a CPU cool ;)